The Internet is an enormous network of computers through which digital information can be sent from one computer to another. The Internet's strength—its high level of interconnectivity—also poses severe problems for the prompt and efficient distribution of voluminous digital information, particularly digitized imaging, audio, or video information.
Internet service providers (ISP's) have attempted to accelerate the speed of delivery of content to Internet users by delivering Internet content (e.g., TCP/IP packets) to the user through a satellite broadcast system. One such system is the direct-to-home (“DTH”) satellite delivery system such as that offered in connection with the mark, “DirecPC.” In these DTH types of systems, each subscriber or user of the system must have: (i) access to a satellite dish; (ii) a satellite receiver connected to the satellite dish and mounted in the user's PC; and (iii) an Internet back channel in order to request information from Internet Web sites.
The DTH system is thus quite costly, since each user must have its own receiver and connection to a satellite dish. The DTH system is also somewhat difficult to deploy since the satellite receiver is mounted in each DTH user's PC.
The DTH system also does not take advantage of any pre-existing satellite systems, and it often is a single carrier system, dedicated to the delivery of Internet content to the user. It does not allow the user flexibility to receive, much less distribute to others, other types of services, such as non-Internet radio broadcast or faxing services for example. The DTH systems also typically modify the IP packets at the head end, thus introducing significant processing delay through the need to reconstruct packets on the receiving end.
DTH systems may also utilize the DVB standard, in which event the system might broadcast other services. DVB systems, however, utilize a statistical data carrier. For this and other reasons, the DVB systems often cause significant additional delay due to the need to reconstruct packets from the statistically multiplexed carrier sent through the DVB system.
The DTH system is also typically quite limited in its bandwidth capabilities. The consumer DirecPC system, for example, is limited to 440 kbps, thus limiting its effectiveness as a reliable, flexible, and quick distribution vehicle for Internet content, particularly voluminous content, to all users of the system through the one carrier.
Another system used by ISP's and others to deliver Internet content through satellites is the use of commercial or professional quality satellite receivers in conjunction with traditional routers connected into an ISP LAN or similar LAN for delivery of the received content through its LAN to its subscribers either on the LAN or through modems and telecommunications lines interconnecting the modems. (See Prior Art FIG. 3.) These types of separate receiver-and-router satellite systems have typically required use of traditional satellite data receivers with integrated serial, often RS-422 types, of interface or data outputs. The data output is connected into the router, which then converts the data into Ethernet compatible output and routes and outputs the Ethernet onto the LAN.
The applicant has discovered that these prior art data receiver and separate router systems present several problems. For example, the traditional data receivers are relatively inflexible and support only one or two services; and the use of a separate router is expensive. In addition, these types of systems usually employ a DVB transport mechanism, which is not well suited to transmitting Internet and similar types of content for a number of reasons. One reason is that, as noted above, the DVB transport protocol and mechanism add substantial delays into the system. Another is that, as the applicant has discovered, the DVB transport mechanism utilizes excessive amounts of bandwidth.